Who Owns a Child’s Education in Wartime?
A school does not have to be destroyed to become a casualty of war. Human Rights Watch reports that in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, schools are being used to reshape children’s identity, restrict access to Ukrainian education, and introduce them to militarized programs. An estimated 1.6 million children remain in occupied territories, including around 600,000 school-age children.
The details make this especially troubling. Ukrainian-language instruction has been removed from Russian-run curricula, while some children studying through Ukrainian online schools have faced surveillance and punishment. Enrollment from occupied territories in Ukrainian online schools fell from 56,000 students in 2024–25 to 44,000 in 2025–26. Students described hiding phones, using VPNs, and even attending online lessons from storage rooms to avoid being discovered.
But the issue goes beyond censorship. HRW found that Russian-run schools expose students to state propaganda and militarized youth programs. Some children were trained with weapons, drones, landmines, and grenades, while boys could be directed toward military registration. The classroom, normally meant to expand a child’s choices, risks becoming a place that narrows them toward one political identity and potentially toward war.
This changes what “protecting schools” should mean. Protecting education cannot stop at preventing bombs from hitting classrooms. It must also protect a child’s language, identity, freedom of thought, and right to learn without coercion. A school may still have walls, teachers, and textbooks, yet cease to be a truly safe school when education itself becomes an instrument of conflict.
Perhaps the harder question is not simply “How do we keep war out of schools?” but “How do we keep schools from becoming part of war?”
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